As it happened: NSW woman in 90s dies with COVID-19 as Sydney records 77 local cases; Victoria closes border to NSW

That’s about it for today. Thanks for following along. Here is a quick recap of the day’s headlines:

• NSW recorded 77 new local cases and one woman in her 90s died with COVID-19. Premier Gladys Berejiklian said people should “be prepared” for the lockdown to extend past Friday.
• Victoria will close the border with NSW at midnight after declaring regional NSW and the ACT as “red zones” despite no cases in those areas. Residents along the border are waiting anxiously to find out whether permanent checkpoints will be installed. The ACT chief minister strongly criticised the move.
• A new federal government ad campaign is being aimed at Sydneysiders from tonight. Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said the video was deliberately “graphic” in an attempt to drive compliance with the public health orders.
• The NRL will move its competition to south-east Queensland this week in a desperate attempt to keep the season alive.

We’ll be back early tomorrow for more live updates.

P.S. For any forlorn Sydney readers, here’s a delightful frame from photographer Nick Moir to bring a brief moment of cheer. Goodnight!

Large swell at Newport this morning.Credit: Nick Moir

Students in Greater Sydney may have to do their lessons from home for longer than a week if COVID-19 case numbers remain high, Premier Gladys Berejiklian has warned, as families and teachers brace for a return to remote learning.

Principals and teachers have spent the holidays preparing online lessons, buying masks for on-site staff and high school students and putting together hard-copy learning packs for families without computers, but say the switch to remote delivery has been smoother this time.

NSW students will begin remote classes this weekCredit: Leon Neal/ Getty Images

While the government had previously reassured parents they would face “just four days” of remote learning, and students would return to classrooms on July 19, Ms Berejiklian warned on Sunday that timetable might change if case numbers remained high.

“Schools are safe but what is not safe is having hundreds of thousands of people leaving home at the same time, dropping kids off, picking kids up,” she said.

Read more here.

Our photographer Dean Sewell was out and about in Fairfield in south-western Sydney today. Here are some of the shots he filed of shoppers and people getting tested.

A shopper wheels a trolley through quiet Fairfield streets.Credit: Dean Sewell

Someone being tested at Fairfield Showgrounds. Credit: Dean Sewell

The wintry weather gave an extra incentive to stay home. Credit: Dean Sewell

ACT’s Chief Minister Andrew Barr has slammed Victoria for restricting travel by designating the ACT as a “red zone” – the same rating as Sydney – despite Canberra being COVID-free.

“After more than a year without local COVID cases, it is incredibly disappointing and frustrating that state borders are again being shut to Canberrans. Canberra is not part of Greater Sydney,” Mr Barr wrote on Twitter.

“At this time, there is very little justification to consider the ACT as a COVID-affected jurisdiction that requires the highest level of travel restrictions.

“We understand that winter is a higher risk period for COVID transmission and states that have experienced extended lockdowns themselves will have low risk appetites for interstate travellers.

“We are asking all states to remove the restrictions on the ACT as soon as possible.”

So why is the ban in place? The short answer, according to the Victorian government, is because the ACT does not have a hard border in place with regional NSW.

And given health authorities are growing increasingly concerned about the potential of COVID-19 to leak into regional NSW, Victoria decided to go hard and take no chances by shutting the border with the ACT.

“This change is about anticipating the potential for transmission in the near future in regional NSW and the ACT, which are closely connected,” Acting Chief Health Officer Daniel O’Brien said.

“Shoring up the border and managing our inbound risks gives us more confidence when reducing restrictions here. There’s going to be some complexities at the border and we recognise that – but it will be far less complex than managing an outbreak.”

Anyone who attended the following venues at the times listed is a close contact and must immediately get tested and isolate for 14 days:

• Greenacre - Greenacre Medical Practice - Monday, July 5, 11.40am – 1.50pm and Tuesday, July 6, 12.40pm – 1.45pm
• Kogarah - President Ave Fruit World - Monday, July 5, 11am – 11.15am
• Kogarah - Supreme Pizza Kogarah - Tuesday, July 6, 3pm – 10pm
• Kogarah - Commonwealth Bank - Monday, July 5, 3.05pm – 3.35pm

Anyone who attended the following venues at the times listed is a casual contact who must immediately get tested and isolate until a negative result is received:

• Ramsgate - Coles supermarket - Saturday, July 3, 9.50pm – 10pm and Tuesday 6 July, 4.45pm – 5pm
• Pyrmont - Bar Zini - Wednesday, July 7, 1pm – 1.15pm and Thursday 8 July, 10am – 10.15am
• Pyrmont - Coles - Friday, July 2, 6.30pm – 7pm and Tuesday, 6 July, 1.45pm – 2pm and Thursday, July 8, 10.30am – 10.50am
• Pyrmont - Jumbo Thai - Thursday, July 8, 6.30pm – 7.00pm
• Chippendale - Budget Petrol - Tuesday, July 6, 7pm – 7.10pm
• Fairfield - Forum Pharmacy - Wednesday, July 7, 10.45am – 12.15pm and Saturday, July 10, 10am – 10.30am
• Wetherill Park - Greenway Smiles Dental - Wednesday, July 7, 2.45pm – 3.30pm and Friday, July 9, 11.15am – 11.30am
• Wetherill Park - Officeworks - Thursday, July 8, 2.45pm – 3.15pm
• Caringbah - Freedom Hearing - Tuesday, July 6, 9am – 10.15am
• Fairfield - Kmart - Wednesday, July 7, 7pm – 7.20pm
• Fairfield - Coles - Wednesday, July 7, 7.20pm – 7.35pm
• Fairfield Heights - Woolworths - Thursday, July 8, 6.15pm – 6.30pm
• Glebe - Harvey Norman - Thursday, July 8, 11.40am – 12.10pm
• Glebe - Kmart - Thursday, July 8, 12.15pm – 12.30pm
• Glebe - Aldi supermarket - Thursday, July 8, 12.20pm – 1pm
• Glebe - Coles - Thursday, July 8, 11.45am – 1.30pm
• Glebe - JB HiFi - Sunday, July 4, 12pm – 12.30pm and Thursday, July 8, 2pm – 2.45pm
• Glebe - Liqourland - Sunday, July 4, 2.30pm – 3.00pm
• Prestons - McDonalds - Monday, July 5, 10.50am – 11.45am
• Fairy Meadow - McDonalds - Saturday, July 10, 9am – 10am
• Miranda - David Jones - Tuesday, July 6, 11.30am – 11.45am
• Manly - Guzman Y Gomez - Saturday, July 3, 1.50pm – 2.05pm
• Manly - Gloria Jeans - Saturday, July 3, 1.45pm – 2pm
• Riverwood - Woolworths - Wednesday, July 7, 12pm – 12.30pm
• Caringbah - Woolworths - Sunday, July 4, 7.15pm – 8.00pm
• Bass Hill - Bass Hill Plaza, Wednesday, July 7, 3pm – 4.30pm
• Bass Hill - Kmart - Wednesday, July 7, 3pm – 4.30pm
• Bass Hill - Broaster Chicken - Wednesday, July 7, 3pm – 4.30pm
• Hurstville - N & G Mechanical Repairs (including the shared car park with Speedy Tyres) - Saturday, July 3, 1.30pm – 2pm
• Kogarah - Cafe 959 - Monday, July 5, 9.30am – 10am
• Rockdale - KFC - Monday, July 5, 10.30am – 4.30pm and Thursday, July 8, 10.30am – 4.30pm

The full list is available here.

Residents along the NSW-Victoria border are nervously waiting to find out if major police checkpoints will be created in their towns, after Victoria’s Chief Health Officer announced the border between the two states would close at midnight tonight.

While travel will still be allowed between border communities on either side of the Murray River from tomorrow, previous permanent Victoria Police traffic stops have caused long delays of several hours as residents travel across the border in places like Echuca and Wodonga.

Victoria Police stop cars entering The Causeway at a checkpoint between Albury and Wodonga. Credit: Jason Robins

City of Wodonga mayor Kevin Poulton, who lives in Albury, said while he was thankful the cities were still united each time a border is created between NSW and Victoria it creates “anxiety and nervousness” for a few days.

He said there would be a severe effect on border communities if a large police checkpoint was erected between the two cities, with residents forced to spend “hours in queues of traffic”.

“Sometimes when you’re a cross-border resident, you’ll be travelling across the border four, five, six times a day depending on your industry,” he said.

“What you’ll notice tomorrow is that everyone here will snap back into working from home mode until it’s clear whether there will be a checkpoint or not. While that’s not as grand an impact on the economy as shutting down an entire capital city, for all border communities, it’s a huge impact each time.”

Our data crunchers have created another map which drills down further on where Sydney’s outbreak has occurred between June 16 and today.

The cases are shown by postcode and sometimes cover several suburbs. For example postcode 2176 in Sydney’s south-west has recorded 28 cases – that includes Bossley Park, Abbotsbury and Wakeley.

The northern beaches – after their outbreak over summer – remain COVID-free, as does Lane Cove, Mosman and the Hawkesbury region.

There have also been very few cases outside of metropolitan Sydney – such as the Central Coast and Shellharbour – which is causing residents there a lot of angst as they question why they are in lockdown.

Regional NSW remains COVID-free, which hasn’t been enough to keep Victoria from declaring it the same risk as Sydney (a “red zone”) and shutting the border.

The map below, which we posted earlier, shows local government areas (not suburbs) but is broken down into weeks since the outbreak began, which allows you to see where the cases are spreading more recently.

The NRL is on Wednesday set to relocate as many as 12 teams to Queensland in a desperate bid to keep the competition alive.

The ARL Commission is locked in a meeting on Sunday afternoon, with all clubs set to be told they will be required to move to south-east Queensland for at least a month.

As many as 12 non-Queensland NRL teams will head to the Sunshine State for at least a month from Wednesday.Credit: NRL Photos

Each team’s bubble will include 41 or 42 players, with families also included as part of the plans. All plans are subject to final approval from the Queensland government.

The teams will be in isolation for the first 14 days, and after could be allowed to roam freely if Queensland doesn’t have any COVID-19 restrictions at the time.

Read more here.

We’re keen to hear from anyone who is rushing home to Victoria from regional NSW ahead of tonight’s 11.59pm border closure.

Also those who might not make it back in time and who may become stranded.

Western Australia has overnight recorded two new cases of COVID-19 in hotel quarantine, including a child, as the state heads into the week with lighter restrictions.

The new cases are a woman in her 30s who recently returned from overseas and a nine-year-old child who is a close contact of a previously confirmed case.

WA Health is now monitoring 12 active COVID-19 cases, two of which are in hospital in a stable condition.

Five of these cases are linked to the Perth northern suburbs cluster, six to hotel quarantine, and the seafarer transferred from the MV Emerald Indah.

All close and casual contacts have tested negative.